EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a unique approach that utilizes and encourages the body's natural way of processing and storing disturbing or traumatic memories.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation of the brain through eye movements or tapping to help you reprocess memories, body sensations, thoughts, or emotions that are distressing to you.
Trauma overwhelms the body and the brain, and in order to focus on survival, the body keeps that traumatic material in the subcortical brain (outside of logical thought or awareness). The raw physical sensations and emotions can intrude in everyday life as flashbacks, nightmares, mood swings, intrusive or disturbing images and physical sensations.
The goal of EMDR therapy is to completely process and desensitize the experiences that are causing problems. "Processing" in EMDR does not mean talking about it as in other types of therapy. "Processing" means accessing the subcortical traumatic material and setting up the body in a calm learning state that will allow the experiences that are causing problems to be "digested" and stored appropriately in your brain. Bilateral stimulation (with eye movements, sounds, or tapping) helps the body access and digest this raw traumatic material. That means that anything useful will be learned and stored with appropriate emotion in the brain, and be able to guide you in positive ways in the future. The distressing or inappropriate emotions, beliefs, and body sensations will be discarded. In the end, the event will be remembered, but not felt with a sense of raw, disturbing emotion.
